"At 11:31:30pm UTC on Feb 13, 2009, Unix time will reach 1,234,567,890.
Where will you be at this momentous second?" - from Bell Labs
This will be Friday, February 13th at 1831 and 30 seconds EST (1531 and
30 seconds PST).
Now if there was any reason to fear Friday the 13th, I think this is it.
That many numbers sequentially in a row representative of time? Who
knows what will stop working? Will lex(1) cease to work, will yacc(1)s
everywhere revolt? Will the rapture be upon us?
I remember asking Alan Cox about UNIX (note that I spelled UNIX in all
capital letters, as it should be) time in 1999. I was confident that
most UNIX systems would not be adversely affected by "Y2K", but I knew
about a hidden time-bomb in the year 2038, when the "UNIX epoch" comes
to an end. Alan assured me that Linux was now working on 64-bit time,
and its "roll-over" would happen about the time that the sun burnt out.
And while this upcoming event is not a "roll-over", nevertheless this
coming Friday the 13th I will be holding my breath....
I intend on being at the place where I have the best chance of surviving
this potential catastrophe and where I can personally do the most good:
=>Martha's Exchange Restaurant in Nashua, New Hampshire, USA<=
While our friends at Bell Labs (er, ah, Lucent....O.K. "Alcatel-Lucent")
rush to understand this phenomenon, I will be doing my civic duty by
drinking fine beer, and maybe an Islay scotch. This is hard to do while
you are holding your breath, but I will suffer through. Who knows,
perhaps the U.S. government will give us a "bailout" to study this
issue.
Who will join me as we watch the time of UNIX line up?
md
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